“Let it be, Roen.”
“No. I won’t do that. Do you still cut yourself?”
“No.”
Roen had another question, but he held on to it a little longer to see if she would say more without prompting. When she did, he knew that waiting her out would always be the right thing to do. She needed time to collect her thoughts. He could give her that.
“Sometimes I want to,” she whispered. “I don’t, though. I haven’t since shortly after Jeremiah died. The urge to do it hasn’t passed entirely; I simply have more reasons to resist it.”
“What prompts the urge?”
Lily didn’t hesitate. “Loathing.”
“Of him?”
“Of myself.”
Roen wished he could make out her features, but she was turned away from the meager light from the stove, and her face was hidden in deep shadows. “Help me understand, Lily.” He found her cheek, brushed it with his fingertips. He was encouraged when she didn’t try to avoid his touch. “I want to understand.”
“Hmm. I believe you. You would be served better by speaking to Ridley. She helped me to see the truth of what I was doing. She told me that she’d seen women in my situation do similar things. You can’t imagine what it was like to know I wasn’t alone. Sometimes I thought I was going mad or eventhat I was already there. I would cut on myself and be mesmerized by the tiny beads of blood, and I would know relief. That’s what you need to understand, Roen. Pain, the kind I brought on myself, gave me relief. The bloodletting gave me relief.”
Roen nodded even though she couldn’t see him, even though he couldn’t grasp the totality of what she’d told him. She seemed to understand the reason for his silence because she unfolded her arms and reached for him. She took his hand in hers and squeezed gently.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I barely comprehend it myself.”
“Don’t excuse me, Lily.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Tell me this,” he said, interrupting. “You said that sometimes you still feel the urge to harm yourself. Was the day I took you and Lizzie to the soda fountain one of those times?”
It pained her to say so, but she knew he would see through the darkness to the lie. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it was one of those times.”
Roen removed his hand from hers and dropped onto his back. He laid his forearm across his eyes. “God. That I forced your hand that day. It was unconscionable.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. You didn’t know, and in the end it was better for me that I went with you. Yes, it was difficult to do something outside my routine, and more difficult because it was with you—a man—someone who was hardly more than a stranger. I despised myself for being ill afterward. That feeling of weakness and inadequacy is paralyzing. Worst of all, Clay and Hannah suspected what had happened and why. So yes, I thought about using my scissors, my pins, my seam ripper, anything sharp, to find relief in the pain, but I didn’t do it, Roen. That is what is important. That is why it’s better that I went with you. I’m stronger for the experience. I’m learning that.”
Roen uncovered his eyes. “Give me your hand.” She did, and he drew it to his heart and covered it with both his hands. “Do you feel that?”
“Your heart? Yes.”
“It’s yours, Lily. Nothing you say will change that. Now, do you feel strong enough to tell me what he did to you?”
Her laugh was short, humorless, and just a little watery. She sniffed.
“Are you crying?” Roen didn’t know why he asked. She’d deny it and he wouldn’t believe her. “Never mind. Come here.” She came willingly when he tugged, rolling against his side. He brought her head to rest in the cradle of his shoulder.
“I don’t know what made me weepy.”
“It’s all right. It doesn’t matter. You’re safe here.”
Lily drew up the neckline of her nightgown to dab at her eyes and then pushed it back into place. She took a steadying breath. “I want to tell you. You might be the only person in Frost Falls who doesn’t know at least some version of what went on during my marriage.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Some. Not as much as you might think. There was a time when I would have answered your question differently. I would have told you why Jeremiah did the things he did to me. I was an inadequate, miserable wife. I couldn’t satisfy him in the kitchen, in public, or in the bedroom. He was the hard worker. I was lazy. He didn’t like to see me sitting because he was on his feet all day. He said I coddled his children, that I was turning Clay into a mama’s boy. I couldn’t fix my hair the way he liked it. I didn’t dress his children properly. Dinner was late. Dinner was early. Dinner was cold. I burnt the coffee. The floor wasn’t clean. I used too many lamps. I spent too much at the butcher. There were so many things I did wrong, but when he was drinking, everything could be exactly as he wished and it still wouldn’t be right.
“Ben wanted me to press charges or take the children and leave. I wouldn’t. Jeremiah loved us, I told him, and I believed it. He provided for us, and we were dependent on him. I was his wife and it was my duty to stay with him. For better or worse. It didn’t matter that it was almost always worse. I never once thought that I could raise the children without him.”
